Always on the search for new ways to motivate students to read carefully and closely, I decided to craft a lesson about being an escape artist. Two recent experiences inspired this lesson - a trip to the awesome Denver Escape Room and a visit to a Houdini museum exhibit in Appleton, WI.

Students were "locked" into Room 1, our first Google doc. In order to escape, they had to read this document and answer the questions (questions represented the lowest two levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.) If they answered correctly, they were given a code by the teacher (a tiny url) that would get them into Room 2. Again, they had to read text and answer questions, this time from the two middle levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. If correct, they received the code to get into Room 3 where they encountered a high level challenge based on our recent energy unit.

Because escape artists usually have time constraints, we projected a visual timer on the board and gave students 40 minutes to try to escape all three rooms. Individual accommodations were made for a few students (text to speech, visual highlighting of key sections, etc.) and an extra challenge for early finishers.

Motivation and engagement was very high. However, we also had students who were highly frustrated. (Most of the mistakes came from rushing or not attending to details.) This led to great conversation with students about the need for persistence in the face of difficulty.

The structure worked really well and my co-teachers and I are already planning on designing more of these for next year. We will try to use text and questions that we already have, rather than creating from scratch like I did with this lesson. As student skills progress during the year, the escapes can become more challenging.

If any of my supremely tech savvy followers can think of a way to do this even more seamlessly, please let me know!

We want students to be able to answer high level questions, but we also want them to ﻿create﻿ these types of questions. If your students need a little help doing this, try using a Create A Question bag.

I developed question stemsfrom the top three levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. These are generic enough that they can be used with almost any content. Then I cut them up and placed some into each of several bags. Each team was given a bag and every student was to reach in and select a question. They had a few minutes to generate a question based on our lesson, write it down on a blank strip of paper and place it into the teacher's bag.

Original Stem

What type of people would be on your team to solve...becameWhat type of people would be on your team to solve the energy crisis?

We then randomly chose student questions to read aloud and answer. Students were highly engaged and excited to answer their peers' questions. Simple and reusable!

Rick Wormeli, in his thought provoking book, Metaphors and Analogies, encourages teachers to frequently weave analogies into instruction. Analogies help students make connections with prior knowledge and paint a visual image that strengthens retention.

My co-teachers and I have decided to use an architectural analogy to teach students the various text structures they will encounter throughout the year. Our introductory lesson began by giving them blueprints to explore.

We then created a Venn Diagram to compare architecture to written text (both have plans, both have purposes that determine structure.)

Next students examined a variety of photos showing buildings with interesting architecture. They were asked to choose a building whose structure represented the structure of a poem (and then a story, an opinion piece, etc.) and be prepared to justify their thinking. Some students struggled but we encouraged them to work with a partner and develop their rationale. We made it clear that there was not a correct answer, as long as they could justify their thinking.

One student chose this photo to represent the structure of a fictional story because of all the twists and turns and unexpected surprises usually found in a good story.

Try it yourself! Which of the following buildings would you to choose to compare to the structure of a poem? Why?

Perhaps because it is snowing outside my window, I am feeling an intense craving for sunshine and the beach. Local stores seem to be stocking the shelves with the fun toys of summer, so I thought I would share with you a strategy for getting students to dig a little deeper.

Obtain a plastic beach bucket and a handful of plastic shovels. On the scoot of each shovel, adhere a piece of paper with one of the following higher level thinking prompts.

Do you see any patterns?

Can you take a different perspective?

Have you noticed any trends?

Are there any ethical issues to consider?

What relationships are obvious? subtle?

Can you make connections across content areas?

Place the shovels in the bucket and carry it with you as you wander the room. If you find a student who is finished early, or just needs some higher level stimulation, ask them to take a shovel from the bucket and dig deeper into the content.

Here's a simple challenge that can lead students to read their texts very closely. After providing your students with the assigned reading material, pass out sticky notes. Tell them that their challenge is to write a question about the topic that is NOT answered by the text. This causes them to read, and reread, and maybe reread again to make sure that the answer isn't in the text. Not only does this lead to interesting questions, but the repeated readings with a purpose lead to improved comprehension and retention. This photo represents all the questions students generated about the 3 branches of government. Before adding a question to the chart, they had to be sure that the text did not already answer it. Tomorrow we will explore finding answers to some of these thoughtful questions!

Activating prior knowledge is a common educational phrase. Almost any teacher will tell you the importance of getting students to make connections to their background knowledge before they learn about a new topic or read a new story.

Recently I searched for ideas on how to activate prior knowledge. Everything I found included the teacher doing the activating of the students - an external event, rather than students learning how to activate their own brains. We need our students to be able to do this independently! During standardized assessments, teachers are not able to prompt students with questions, KWL charts, and other hints about the topic. During most authentic learning situations, I don't have someone saying to me "What do you Know about this topic?"

So how does one activate one's own knowledge? What do you do when faced with a topic you know little about? I reflected on my own experience and then developed a tool to help my students. The Prior Knowledge Spinner provides 6 questions to stimulate metacognition, particularly as it relates to prior knowledge. I provided students with the topic, then had them spin and answer the questions.

I also created a second version with visual prompts to help our English Learners or other students who needed some additional support.

Our goal is to have students use the spinners frequently enough that the questions become embedded in their metacognitive processes. This will include a transition phase when we fade out the actual spinners and encourage a visualization.

Interested in these tools? Email me a request at anne@ideasforeducators.com and I will be happy to send them to you.

Years ago I read an article by Alfie Kohn in which he claimed that teachers were ruining students' abilities to think critically. He wrote that the educators tend to prefer students who are compliant (very true) and that by demanding compliance from students, we were squashing their natural inclination to question things.

While I didn't fully agree with him, it did get me questioning my own practices. Was there a way that I could encourage students to challenge authority in a respectful, appropriate way?

Out of that reflection grew my Challenge Authority Cards. While I have developed a variety of them, I particularly like these that ask students to challenge or question the text they are reading. This skill is especially important as students read information on unscreened internet sources.

I find this is a great way to engage some of the higher level thinkers in a class - or early finishers. If you keep these handy, you can use them on the spur of the moment. So, just Copy These Questions, cut them up and hand them to students who are ready for a challenge.

The Common Core State Standards in math expect students to be able to explain their thinking and discuss mathematical concepts. This is quite a challenge for most students, but especially for those who struggle with language as English Learners or students with disabilities. Discussion Poker Chips are something I have used successfully for literature circle discussions. Last week we tried them out in an inclusive, co-taught Algebra 1 class for the first time. Students were placed in groups of 4 and provided with a Math Discussion Board. This is available for download here. (Modify to fit the level of your students.) Each student was given 3 poker chips of a single color (1 student had green, 1 student had red, 1 student had blue and 1 student had white.) My co-teacher and I modeled how to use the chips to have a conversation while working together through a set of problems. We explained that the goal was to use the vocabulary represented on the board. If a student used the word, he could place his chip on that space. Students were encouraged to cover as many of the spaces as they could – just a hint of competition! While it took a little while for the conversation to get started, we began to see students who never talk participating in the discussion! I credit three aspects of the activity – the symbols on the board serve as cues for students who can’t think of what to say, the poker chips add a tactile component that heightens alertness and the friendly competition between groups provided some motivation.

I am fortunate enough to be invited to co-teach in classrooms all over the country. When these opportunities arise, I ask the classroom teacher to email me the lesson plan and any accompanying materials a few days in advance so that I can look at them. My goal is to analyze the materials from the perspective of a special educator, thinking about what adaptations or differentiation I can add to support struggling students. Often, these classroom materials include a graphic organizer (GO) of some kind. Recently I reviewed several different “graphic organizers” and was struck by the breadth of what that term seems to mean to teachers. Some of the GOs were very detailed, while others were minimalistic. Reflecting, I wondered if educators need a rubric of some kind for what an effective GO looks like. (A web search led to several rubrics to use after a student has designed and completed a GO, but none for teachers to use in designing or choosing a GO to provide students. If you know of one, please share.) Here is my first attempt at the criteria to include in a GO Rubric. Please let me know what you think! · The format allows for relationships or patterns to be clearly seen · Illustrations/graphics support the learning objective · Prompts are provided in a simple but clear manner · Scaffolding (as necessary) provides access to the concepts · Once complete, the graphic organizer can be interpreted in a meaningful way The GO on the left was provided to me, designed for a lesson on the Civil War, in which the primary objective was for students to be able to identify multiple perspectives on a topic, especially that of the African American soldiers. The GO on the right shows my redesign, based on the above rubric, including supports for struggling students. It is generic enough to be used for any discussion of multiple perspectives. Feel free to download it here.

I love Wikki Stix for encouraging students to develop abstract, symbolic representations of concepts. At a recent workshop with 4th grade math teachers, I asked them to use Wikki Stix to represent the concept of skip counting. Here are a few photos of their products!

This photo shows three students playing double dutch, chanting "2, 4, 6, 8...." in their rhyme as they jump.

This photo shows skip counting by 3s to 6 at the top in yellow, then by 2s, then by 1.5s and finally counting by 1s at the bottom.

This representation shows skip counting in a number line fashion with a small person at the top, jumping, and colors that show odd and even numbers.